Caning of Senator Sumner

Election of 1856

Dred Scott

Lincoln Douglas debate

John Brown’s raid

In reaction to the violence in Kansas, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts delivered a speech denouncing the authors of

the Kansas Nebraska Act. Two days later he was attacked by Congressman Preston Brooks from South Carolina, cousin of one of the authors. Sumner was beaten until Brooks’ cane broke, long after he was unconscious. This event angered northerners, was celebrated in southern newspapers, and

indicated the widening rift in the nation.

Charles Fremont

Republican Party

James Buchanan

Democratic Party

Millard Fillmore

American (Know

Nothing) Party

Election of 1856 candidates

The Republican Party

Campaign poster from the 1856 election was designed to remind voters of

Fremont's famous expeditions to the Rocky Mountains in 1842 and 1843.

The Republicans opposed the extension

of slavery and the Mormon practice of

bigamy (having more than one wife).

The slogan of the Republican party was

"Free Speech, Free Press, Free soil, Free

Men, Fremont and Victory!"

Buchanan, depicted as a poor bachelor, sewed a patch

marked “Cuba” on his jacket, a reference to his authorship of the Ostend Manifesto of 1854.

The Democratic platform supported the Compromise of 1850, opposed federal interference in slavery, and

supported the building of the transcontinental railroad.

The party grew out of an 1843 New York anti-immigrant (nativist) sentiment. It spread to other states and

became a national party in 1845. The origin of "Know Nothing" came about because the organization was semi-secret. When a member was asked about its activities, he

was supposed to reply "I know nothing.”

A portrait of a young man

representing the nativist ideal of the

Know Nothing party.

A third party entered the election, the American or Know Nothing Party

Millard Fillmore

Limits on immigration, especially from Catholic countries

Government officials at all levels must only be native born citizens

Naturalization should only be allowed after a continued residence of 21 years, and never an option for the poor or criminals

Restricting public school teachers to Protestants

Opposition to any union between Church and State; no interference with religious faith or worship, and no test oaths for office

Anti-Catholic and anti-Irish political cartoons

Platform of the American (Know Nothing) Party

Nativist publication depicted anti-immigrant sentiment in words and images

1856 Election results. Notice which states voted for the anti-slavery

Republican Party.

Dred Scott Decision: 1857

Lincoln-Douglas Debate: 1858

John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry: 1859

Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln elected president: 1860

Southern states began seceding from the union to form the Confederate States of America: 1860

Important events during Buchanan’s presidency

Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford, March 6, 1857

Dred Scott, born a slave, was taken by his master, an army surgeon, into the free portion of the Louisiana territory.

Upon his master's death, Scott sued in Missouri for his freedom on the grounds that since slavery was outlawed in the free territory, he had become a free man there, and "once free always free."

The argument was rejected by a Missouri court. Scott and his white supporters got the case to the Supreme Court

where the issue was whether a slave had standing, meaning the legal right to sue in a federal court.

If Scott had standing, then the Court had jurisdiction to hear the case, and the justices could decide the merits of his claim. But if, as a slave, Scott did not have standing, then the Court could dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction.

The Court ruled Scott, as a slave, could not exercise the right of a free citizen to sue in federal court and that should have been the end of the case.

Chief Justice Taney and other southern sympathizers on the Court wanted a definitive ruling to settle the issue of slavery in the territories. They ruled the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional since Congress could not forbid citizens from taking their property, i.e. slaves, into any territory owned by the U.S. A slave, Taney ruled, was property, nothing more, and could never be a citizen.

“Upon these considerations it is the opinion of the Court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of

the United States north of the line therein mentioned is not warranted by the Constitution and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his

family, were made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been carried there by the owner with the intention of becoming a permanent resident.”

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

Dred Scott

Although two justices disagreed and wrote dissenting opinions, the decision was made by the majority.

Anti-slavery advocates used the text of the dissenting opinions to argue their stance in newspapers and leaflets across the nation.

The decision of Scott v. Sandford was considered by legal scholars to be the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court.

Judgment in the U.S. Supreme Court Case Dred Scott v. John F. A.

Sandford, March 6, 1857

Lincoln-Douglas debates, Illinois 1858

Series of formal political debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in a campaign for one of Illinois' two U.S. Senate seats.

Although Lincoln lost the election, these debates launched him into national prominence which eventually led to his election as president.

The debates were held in seven Illinois

cities.

Lincoln and Douglas debated the expansion of slavery, the authority of states to control slavery within their own

borders, and whether the Dred Scott decision had been correct. Lincoln opposed slavery expansion, while Douglas believed in popular sovereignty, or the ability of each state

government to determine its own laws and policies.

“I, John Brown, am now quite certain that

the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but

with blood….”

John Brown organized a raid in 1859 in Harper’s Ferry to gather weapons to lead a slave uprising

On the night of October 16, 1859, Brown led a band of followers in an attack on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry in what is now the state of West Virginia.

Brown's goal was to use the weapons seized to lead a slave uprising. After two days of fighting, Brown and his surviving men were taken prisoner by a force of U.S. marines commanded by Colonel Robert E. Lee.

Brown was tried for conspiracy, treason and murder, and on December 2, 1859, he was hanged.

Southerners who had been undecided on secession joined the pro secession side in fear their lives and property were no longer safe

from northern intrusion.

1859 drawings of John Brown’s the attack on Harper’s Ferry

John Brown and four other survivors were taken to

Charlestown, Virginia for trial.

His statements during the trial were published and

widely read.

The hanging made Brown an abolitionist martyr.

“…It [the Bible] teaches me further to "remember them that

are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am too young to understand that God is

any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done -- as I have always freely admitted I have done -- in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood

of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave

country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments. -- I submit; so let it be done!”

Two views of John Brown leaving the courthouse

after being condemned to death

21

The 1860 election was a direct cause of the secession of the southern states and the outbreak of the Civil War.

Election Summary

In the presidential election of 1860 the Republican Party

nominated Abraham Lincoln as its candidate. The party platform declared that slavery could spread no farther but would not be threatened where it already existed. The party also promised a

tariff for the protection of industry, transcontinental railroad and pledged the enactment of a law granting free homesteads to

settlers who would help in the opening of the West. The Democrats were not united. Southerners split from the party and nominated Vice President John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky for president. Stephen A. Douglas was the nominee of northern Democrats.

Diehard Whigs from the border states, formed into the Constitutional Union Party, nominated John C. Bell of Tennessee.

Lincoln and Douglas competed in the North, and Breckenridge and Bell in the South. Lincoln won only 39 percent of the popular vote, but had a clear majority of 180 electoral votes, carrying all 18 free states. Bell won Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia; Breckenridge took the other slave states except for Missouri, which was won by

Douglas.

22

Four parties ran candidates in the 1860 election

Abraham Lincoln Stephen Douglas

Republicans

Northern Democrats

Constitutional Union

Southern Democrats

John Bell John Breckinridge

23

Lincoln would not assume the presidency until March of 1861. By then seven southern states had seceded and a lame duck President Buchanan and Congress could do little to stop the dissolution of the Union.

24

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Electoral Vote

Lincoln

Douglas

Breckinridge

Bell

0200000400000600000800000

100000012000001400000160000018000002000000

Popular Vote

Lincoln

Douglas

Breckinridge

Bell

Lincoln scored a decisive

victory in electoral

votes

he received less than

40% of the popular

vote

BUT

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Lincoln’s inauguration

“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most

solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it." I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.”

26

Secession map 1860-1863

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The election of Abraham Lincoln was the trigger that set off the first wave of secession in the

southern slave states.

28

South Carolina was the first state to leave the Union. Immediately

following Lincoln's election, the fire-eaters called a convention, and six

weeks later the convention unanimously passed an ordinance of

secession.

An ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina

and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution

of the United States of America." We, the people of the State of South

Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain… that the union

now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the

name of the "United States of America," is hereby dissolved.

Done at Charleston the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord

one thousand eight hundred and sixty.

South Carolina seceded, December 1860

29

Formation of the Confederate States of America

• Southern state delegates met in Montgomery, Alabama

• Wrote constitution that protected rights of slave owners

• Elected Jefferson Davis first CSA president

30

Confederate States of America (CSA)

31

Union states

The shaded states were the loyal border slave states

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Missouri

Kentucky

Delaware

Maryland

Border states allowed slavery but were kept in

the Union.

They were necessary for Union to hold at all costs

because the North needed:

– To keep their economic resources

– To keep their manpower for the Union war effort

Significance of the border states

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Union

• Twice as many people

• More manpower for fighting

• More industry and railroads

• Better economy and food production

• Recognition as an independent nation

• Better political leaders

Confederacy

• Better military leaders and military tradition

• “The Cause”

• Importance of cotton to the world economy

• Fighting on home territory

• Fighting a defensive rather than offensive war

Strengths of the North and South